August 16 2020 Matthew
15.10-20, 21-28 “Jesus Said, ‘Listen’ Pastor Jacqueline Hines
Twenty weeks and just
when we see some things getting worse instead of better, there are still some
things that are getting better instead of worse. This is indeed the day that
the Lord has made. We may be mourning the loss of some things, still we are rejoicing and
we are glad in it.
Let’s begin with a selection by Donna. (available on youtube)
Rules are great, but rules need to be regularly reviewed and revisited. We need to make way for new rules.
Some rules of law seem unfair when they put
persons in jail for the same amount of time even though one is arrested for carrying
$5 worth of marijuana and another for armed robbery. Frequently, persons
accused of blasphemy are killed in some countries, while in other countries
blasphemers may be simply embarrassed, shamed, or shunned.
Rules can keep us civilized
and humane, but if we are not careful, we can allow rules to become downright
evil, nonsensical, outdated and irrelevant.
When rules are good,
they are very good. When they are bad, they can be very bad.
Jesus talked about
rules for things that defile us. He was talking about things that make us
spiritually unclean and morally dirty. He talked about things that poison the
minds of our children and turn our communities into cesspools of corruption. Jesus
was, no doubt, also thinking about the hundreds of dietary rules designed to
keep God’s people healthy and to take care of the environment. Certain laws
prohibited eating road kill and bottom feeders. You could only excavate so much
land at a time for several environmental reasons. Just like any society
throughout the ages, marriages, divorces, inheritances, taxes and travel, were
all ruled and regulated by somebody, somewhere at one time or another.
From Jesus conversation
in Matthew 15, it seems God’s people had become overly concerned with certain
rules, especially rules about what they put into their bodies.
Today, we talk about whole foods,
We hear the controversy
of how toxic children’s vaccines may be. History has shown us that corporations
have not hesitated to secretly add addictive substances to tobacco in order to
increase sales. Medical doctors are doing hard time as we speak for paying each
other thousands of dollars in bonuses to up the dosages of opioids for their
patients in pain. All in all, the question Jesus would ask is: do we think about our spiritual health as much as
we do about our physical health? Isn’t our spiritual health just as important
as our physical health?
Verse 10
tells us Then Jesus called the crowd to him and said to
them, ‘Listen and understand: 11it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it
is what comes out of the mouth that defiles.’
It is
interesting that Matthew does not say the crowd came to Jesus. It says Jesus
called the crowd to him and he said “listen and understand.” Listen and
understand!
Many times, we come to
Jesus with a praise or with our needs…at other times, Jesus calls us to
himself, to listen and understand. It’s like getting called into the principal’s
office…we may be anxious and not in much of a hurry to hear what we assume is
unsettling news.
Do you hear Jesus
calling you? Is there something he needs you to hear? Or, is a family member
calling your name, trying to get you to listen and understand? Do you hear the
faint cry of someone in need or someone who cares about you enough to share a
word of wisdom? A word or warning? A word that requires you to change and do something
or say something you may not yet be willing to do or say?
We can be bold like the
Canaanite women who approached Jesus in the verse. The Canaanites had a terrible reputation.
If you were from Canaan you were thought to be associated with moral degradation
and not worth very much to your fellow and sister human beings. A Canaanite was
thought of as having ungodly ways and lacked concern for the ways of kindness
and compassion, choosing cruelty instead. It was the mission of God to turn all
Canaanite territory into a land flowing with the milk of missions to humanity
and the honey of holiness.
Yet here was a Canaanite
woman who did not fit the stereotype. She was looking for help from Jesus. She
was respectful and God-fearing, realizing God was for her and not against her. Verse 21 tells us
21 Jesus
left that place and went away to the district of Tyre and Sidon. 22Just then a Canaanite
woman from that region came out and started shouting, ‘Have mercy on me, Lord,
Son of David; my daughter is tormented by a demon.
’ 23But he did not answer her
at all. And his disciples came and urged him, saying, ‘Send her away, for she
keeps shouting after us.’ 24He answered, ‘I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of
Israel.’ 25But she came and knelt before him, saying, ‘Lord, help me.’
26He answered, ‘It is not
fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.’ 27She said, ‘Yes, Lord, yet
even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.’ 28Then Jesus answered her, ‘Woman,
great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.’ And her daughter was healed
instantly.
I like this story because it tells us that God works some things out instantly. When we come to Jesus with our loudest, strongest voice, not allowing our fear of naysayers to send us away, when we can confidently declare God’s truth that we are worthy even when we have a reputation for being worthless, we are showing great faith and we find help and healing instantly for ourselves and our loved ones. In one way or another, demons leave us!
Can you hear the voice
of Jesus calling you to a deeper faith in the God who is good and wants good
things for you?
There are times we have
selective hearing on purpose. You’ve heard the story of an elderly
gentleman who had serious hearing problems for a number of years. He went to
the doctor and the doctor was able to have him fitted for a set of hearing aids
that allowed the gentleman to hear 100%. The elderly gentleman went back in a
month to the doctor and the doctor said, “Your hearing is perfect. Your family
must be really pleased that you can hear again.” The gentleman replied, “Oh, I
haven’t told my family yet. I just sit around and listen to the conversations.
I’ve changed my will three times!” This story reminds us that we all use
selective hearing to our advantage.
Many times we cannot hear because we
are just overwhelmed. Medical records tell of persons who have hysterical
deafness. Their ears are fine, but because they are the victims of some kind trauma,
their hearing is compromised.
The stress of various traumas affect
us in many ways. For years Maya Angelo could not speak for fear that
her rapist would fulfill his promise to kill her family if she told on him. I
once heard of soldiers and women in a certain village who were traumatized by
war in their country and they became blind, though medical examinations showed
no physical reason for their blindness.
Just like every church has a mission,
every District has a mission. Not long ago, our South District set up eye
clinics in the Congo. People would lose their eyesight simply because of
contaminated water. A billion people are effected.
Rebecca Shore tells us that in 1998, the Democratic Republic of Congo became part of what some
people called Africa's First World War, in a conflict between seven African
nations. There are many reasons why the war broke out, she says, including conflicts over
minerals, water, and food. After the war, water became an increasingly sparse
resource due to the collapse of the DRC's infrastructure during the fighting.
Although the DRC use to be one of the wettest nations in Africa, today the
majority of rural Congolese do not have access to sanitary water because of the
lack of infrastructure. In fact, one study found that since
the war, most Congolese have not died from violence, but rather from malaria,
diarrhea, and malnutrition, all problems associated with the lack of water
(Global Issues).
Though water is contaminating their lives and robbing them of
a future, what happened when someone spoke words of war out of their mouth is the root reason that
they have been defiled. Like Jesus said, it’s not what goes into our mouth that
defiles, but what comes out of our mouths.
It is said that there are certain have
rituals, songs, and dances among some people in New Guinea. They work
themselves up into a frenzy and the ritual culminates in what are called “the
murder songs,” in which they shout before God the names of the people they wish
to kill. Those who became Christian, retained these customs and that ritual. However,
in the murder songs, they no longer shouted the names of the people they hated,
but the names of the sins they hated, and called on God to destroy those sins. A
pagan custom had been captured for Christ.
Would that we would all be as careful
about what comes out of our mouth as we do about what goes into it. Amen.
==
Let us pray. Holy God you know our heart. You know deep in our hearts we
want to be holy like you are holy. We want to do good and to be good. Give us
strength to be at peace with doing your will, with listening to your voice
until we understand, with listening to each other’s voice, until we understand.
We pray as you taught us to pray: Our father who art
in heaven. Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, they will be done, on earth
as it is in heaven. Give us this day, our daily bread and forgive us our
trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into
temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom and the power
and the glory forever. Amen.
Next week we here from
Brother Ron Moore who will be bringing us the Word. He is a family man a
husband, a father and a grandfather who loves God and people and always has a
powerful testimony.
If you would like to make your contribution to
the ministry and mission of Bethel, the website is Bethelumchurch.com
Or you can send to 952 Bethel Church Road, Spring City, Pa. 19475. God bless you! God bless you.
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